Diamanti lets you deploy containerized applications in your environment faster, easier and cheaper, with minimal operational risk and 24/7 first-class enterprise support.

Editorial Note

Docker containers, Kubernetes and cloud-native infrastructure all present significant opportunities to add efficiencies to the way we build and deploy applications. However, with the advantages of these technologies comes additional complexity. In some cases, IT teams may hesitate to take advantage of next-generation technologies because they worry that they’ll be too hard to deploy, manage and scale.

Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be that way. While container infrastructure is certainly challenging to set up and manage if you choose to design and build it yourself, there are solutions that significantly streamline the process.

Diamanti lets you deploy containerized applications in your environment faster, easier and cheaper, with minimal operational risk and 24/7 first-class enterprise support.

To provide a glimpse of the Diamanti Bare Metal Container Platform in action, this article walks through using Diamanti to deploy a containerized database using Kubernetes. We’ll start by discussing why this is a challenging task using traditional approaches. We will then walk through some examples of using the Diamanti Bare Metal Container Platform to perform this process in simple steps. Finally, we’ll discuss how the Diamanti approach for accomplishing this task compares to other solutions, and what makes Diamanti stand out.

Current Challenges

Let’s say that we are a business, and we are trying to modernize our existing infrastructure using the latest technologies. We decide to use Kubernetes for container orchestration, and our first task is to deploy containerized databases in production. We have no prior knowledge of Kubernetes for container orchestration.

Before taking any action, we have to go through a series of time-consuming steps and evaluations. It’s necessary to understand how the basic building blocks fit together and how to design systems that leverage the full capabilities of the platform before we can combine them together to form interconnected services. This process, as depicted below, can take weeks or even months of installation, integration and testing.

But with the Diamanti platform, we have a more streamlined process that is better suited for fast-evolving businesses that want to break through the market with minimal operational effort. The overview of the process (as depicted below) is reduced to the absolute minimum steps required: Engage Diamanti and see what they have to offer, Installit, Run applications using their UI Dashboard or their CLI tool, and Breathe Easy as you can focus on satisfying your business needs and giving value to your customers.

To see a step-by step-demonstration on how we can deploy a containerized database in less than 15 minutes using the Diamanti D10 bare metal container platform and a variety of approaches, click here.

Why does it matter?

In the above tutorial, we saw how easy it is to deploy a containerized database using the Diamanti platform. But you may be wondering why it’s worth investing in this technology.

Generally, when we compare two technologies, we focus primarily on their distinct differences so that anyone who tries to test them can get a strong picture. In terms of deploying existing applications, if you’re deciding between using a certified Kubernetes distribution on cloud VMs vs. a bare metal containerized platform like that from Diamanti, the following key factors indicate the latter is more suitable for running production containers with high performance requirements at scale.

• Tooling: Both platforms offer a UI that can be used to manage a container infrastructure. However, in the case of the default Kubernetes UI, there are still a few critical UI components that are missing, like RBAC controls (there is an open issue) or SNMP monitoring. Current enterprise customers will be looking to use these, and the Diamanti platform offers them by default.
• Performance: By design, bare metal providers offer better resource consolidation and a better foundation to run a full Kubernetes cluster. A lesser footprint means a bigger performance boost compared to VMs. The developer experience is even better, as we can deploy apps in less than 15 minutes, thus improving the feedback loop.
• Networking: Adding a networking layer to Kubernetes is a necessary but tricky step to accomplish. There are open source solutions that help handle the dirty details, but with a lot of configuration steps. Plus, this sort of software-defined networking has its own obvious drawbacks such as increased overhead and configuration roadblocks. Instead, with Diamanti, we don’t have those issues, as the containers are plugged directly into existing VLANs and DNSes, and each one of them is assigned an IP address. It achieves this via a combination of standard plus specialized hardware and it removes any unnecessary hops between the container and the OS. The result is native performance and a simplified networking topology.
• Storage: According to the article “State of Kubernetes Ecosystem,” storage is the third top challenge that practitioners and enterprises face. The key is to offer a nice API to use persistent data and not go through the process of creating one from scratch every time we deploy a containerized application or database. Scaling up this layer for future needs should be equally easy. This is not obvious or trivial to do in Kubernetes, as in the current state, most external storage solutions do not work well with cloud-scale environments. This is not an issue with Diamanti Platform as the persistent layer is fitted with modern NVMe block storage and with a simple API to access it. This ticks all the boxes of low latency, flexibility and ease of use that are required for modern enterprise applications.
• Quality of Service (QoS): On top of the segregated duties of Networking and Storage, Diamanti offers more fine-grained control over the Quality of Service (QoS) that each of those components delivers. This is important because balancing the workload of critical services and applications cuts the risk of resource starvation. For example, it makes it possible to control the allocated bandwidth levels on each Pod, container or volume and avoid any bottlenecks that may occur. This offers a guaranteed QoS that allows multi-million IOPS, which is far higher than any competitive solution out there.
• Support: Diamanti offers 24/7 top-to-bottom support on its platform. Currently, there is also a list of partners in the Kubernetes ecosystem that offer similar support with varying degrees of quality.

If your organization is adopting Kubernetes and containers on bare metal, you may be working hard to understand what infrastructure options are best for your business. To learn the advantages of bare-metal containers and how the Diamanti bare-metal container platform can help your team achieve its objectives quickly and easily, click here.